Thieves, Beasts & Men by Shan Leah

Author:Shan Leah
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781950994083
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

The girl listens to all the sleep-breathing. There is the woman above them sleep-breathing, the new woman on the sofa sleep-breathing, and much smaller sleep-breathing coming from the little girl on the floor.

Brother crawls out. The girl doesn’t want him to get hurt, but she wants to see, too, so she follows.

Long, dark hair falls over the side of the sofa, and the girl stops to stare at it. Brother stops, too. The new woman’s hair is soft and straight, like the grass that hangs down from the big trees by the water. The new woman is scary, but she is asleep, and so they are safe.

The girl is not fast enough to stop brother from touching the new woman’s hair. She whispers a stop sound to him and he pulls his hand back. He smells his fingertips and smiles. The girl smells brother’s fingertips—they smell like the small pointy flowers that grow in a big bunch. The girl doesn’t understand how hair can smell like flowers, but she wants her hair to smell like flowers, too. Mother knows everything. When they are with mother again, she will ask mother to make her hair smell like flowers.

The new woman’s face is a little bit scary, even when she sleeps. Her eyes look mad and her mouth looks mad. The girl wonders how long she will be here and hopes not very long.

The girl looks away from the new woman who is mad when she sleeps, and crouches beside the little girl on the floor. Brother sits by her so he can look, too. Her hair is the color of the tall grass that’s fun to chew on. The girl rubs her fingers on the little girl’s arm. Her skin is very light, like river sand, and even softer. Brother gasps. She shushes him, and he shushes. The girl smells her fingers. The little girl on the floor does not smell like the small pointy flowers that grow in a big bunch. She smells like berries.

Brother leans closer to the floor, and the girl whispers the not-so-close sound, but brother doesn’t listen. He gets even closer. The girl does not get as close to the little girl on the floor as brother does. Sometimes she is not as brave as brother. The little girl on the floor has long hairs on her eyes that flutter as she sleeps. Brother leans in to touch them but changes his mind. He touches her cheek, her ear, her nose.

And then the little girl on the floor opens her mouth and sneezes on brother’s face.

Brother is still, and his sister is still, and the little girl on the floor did not wake up and is still.

Brother looks at the girl, his face wet and sparkling in the firelight. Eyes big. Teeth showing. And then they are laughing and rushing back to hide beneath the bed before they wake up the new woman on the sofa and the little girl on the floor and make them mad.

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